Sharing the lecture held on October 3, 2023.

Chasing the News and Deciphering History

SPEAKER: Andrew Nagorski

SUMMARY:

As a high school student in Seoul, Andrew Nagorski observed the student protests of the 1960s, and as a foreign correspondent, he covered the assassination of Park Chung Hee and the subsequent Gwangju Uprising. This was the starting point of his fascination with the upheavals that are constantly reshaping our world, and the forces that have toppled dictatorships and propelled some countries to new heights, while others have remained mired in old and new conflicts. It also triggered his interest in exploring the origins of totalitarian regimes.

Based on his experiences in Russia and Eastern Europe, both during the Communist era and following the collapse of the Soviet empire, he will discuss the return to tyranny in Russia and Putin’s war against Ukraine, and the lessons of history not just for the United States and Europe, but also for Asia.

BIO:

Andrew Nagorski was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to Polish parents, moved to the United States as an infant and has rarely stopped moving since. As a newly minted U.S. citizen, his father joined the foreign service, which meant that Andrew grew up in Cairo, Seoul, and Paris. He attended Amherst College and then taught social studies in a Massachusetts high school, before embarking on his career as an award-winning journalist and author who spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek.

He served as the magazine’s bureau chief in Hong Kong, Rome, Bonn, Berlin, Warsaw, and Moscow. In 1982, he gained international notoriety when the Soviet government, angry about his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the country.

Nagorski now lives in St. Augustine, Florida but continues to travel extensively, writing for numerous publications. He is the author of eight books, including Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power, 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War and The Nazi Hunters.

His latest book, Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom, has received rave reviews. As The Washington Post put it, “Nagorski tells a riveting new story, one that shows just how narrow Freud’s escape from the Nazi genocide was.” The Wall Street Journal called it “a psychobiographical thriller about the limits of genius,” and The Guardian wrote, “Thrilling . . .  as edge-of-your-seat gripping as any heist movie.”

Nagorski is also chairman of the board of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, a member of the board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Overseas Press Club, and a former member of the board of the Jacksonville World Affairs Council.

Visit www.andrewnagorski.com